Ohio Forestry Association Inc. v. Sierra Club et al. País/Territorio Estados Unidos de América Tipo de la corte Nacional - corte superior Fecha May 18, 1998 Fuente UNEP, InforMEA Nombre del tribunal Supreme Court of the United States Juez ScaliaRehnquistStevensOConnorKennedyThomasGinsburgBreyerSouter Número de referencia 97-16 Idioma Inglés Materia Bosques Palabra clave Ordenación forestal/conservación de montes Acceso-a-la-justicia Procedimientos judiciales/procedimientos administrativos Resumen The Sierra Club, an environmental organization, challenged the lawfulness of a federal land and resource management plan adopted by the United States Forest Service for Ohio’s Wayne National Forest on the ground that the plan permitted too much logging and too much clear cutting. The plan had been developed pursuant to the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA). The plan set logging goals, selected the areas suited to timber production, and determined which probable methods of timber harvest were appropriate, and thereby made logging in the forest more likely. However, it did not itself authorize the cutting of any trees. Before the Service could permit logging, the NFMA and applicable regulations required it to: (a) propose a particular site and specific harvesting method, (b) ensure that the project was consistent with the Plan, (c) provide affected parties with notice and an opportunity to be heard, (d) conduct an environmental analysis of the project, and (e) make a final decision to permit logging, which affected persons could challenge in administrative and court appeals. Furthermore, the Service had to revise the Plan as appropriate. The Sixth Circuit Court found the dispute justiciable because, inter alia, it was ripe for review and held that the Plan violated the NFMA. The Supreme Court analyzed the question whether the dispute was ripe for review once again. It was of the view that in deciding whether an agency decision was ripe, it had to examine the fitness of the particular issues for judicial decision and the hardship to the parties of withholding review. Applying these principles the Court found that the relevant factors, taken together, excluded a court review. First, withholding review would not cause the plaintiffs significant hardship. The challenged Plan provisions did not create adverse effects of a strictly legal kind; for example, they did not establish a legal right to cut trees or abolish any legal authority to object to trees being cut. Delaying review would also not cause the Sierra Club significant practical harm. Given the procedural requirements the Service had to observe before it could permit logging, the Sierra Club needed not bring its challenge now, but could await a later time when harm was more imminent and certain. Besides that, court review now could interfere with the system that Congress specified for the Forest Service to reach logging decisions. Immediate review could hinder the agencies’ efforts to refine its policies through revision of the Plan or application of the Plan in practice. Here, there was a real possibility that further consideration would actually occur before the Plan was implemented. Review now would require time-consuming consideration of the details of an elaborate Plan, which predicted consequences that could affect many different parcels of land in a variety of ways. The review would have to take place without benefit of the focus that particular logging proposals could provide. Depending upon the agency’s future actions to revise the Plan or modify the expected implementation methods, review now could turn out to have been unnecessary. The Court therefore held that the dispute was not justiciable, because it was not ripe for court review. Texto completo 97-16.ZO.html